Bad times, good times, confused times
by ChibiMilly
Summary: After Jinx had decided to leave to find her own way, Billy Numerous is trying to find a cure to boredom resulting from the drama. Kid Wicked helps out but also presents Billy with some feelings he's not sure how to deal with.
1. Chapter 1

Billy lounged on the couch, currently excruciatingly bored. With no Jinx to lead them, the Hive Five (Now accurately named) didn't exactly have much to do. They robbed from a Best Buy – Gizmo needed some raw materials, everyone else just wanted new video games and movies – as well as some small jobs here and there, but the excitement was drained out of it. There was no thrill to stealing. It was overshadowed by the drama of Jinx leaving, which didn't leave Billy pleased at all. He didn't leave a backwoods section of Texas to be bored. He didn't start stealing so he would sit on his butt and think of things to do while counting the tiles in the ceiling. Billy wanted the stifled environment that Jinx's departure brought to leave, ASAP. See-More in particular was taking it hard.

Billy scowled, refusing to take part in boredom. He quickly multiplied into four, and booted up the Xbox, looking to glean some excitement, some actual fun from playing Halo against himself. Mammoth was sleeping, and See-more said he needed some time to himself, so he couldn't bug them to add variety to the game. He sighed a bit, but moved past that disappointment and jumped right into a multiplayer match.

Roughly 7 minutes later, Kid Wicked glided into the leaving room, unnoticed at first. All the Billys were too absorbed in talking trash to each other, insisting that one of them was being cheap, and, of course, pressing the trigger button a lot. When Wicked tapped one of them on the shoulder over the couch, Billy promptly spazzed out. He had not expecting anyone else to be around.

"Je-sus!" Billy said, whipping around quickly, forgetting to press pause – leaving him wide open as a firing range. "Oh…it's you, Wicked." He added, now relaxing a little.

Wicked smiled a little, then pointed at the game, signaling with his body that he wanted to play too. Billy nodded, abruptly remerging one of his others back into him, making room for Wicked. He restarted the match, much to the dismay of the other Billys who were ahead in the game.

"Aw, man, we were winnin'!"

"Only cuz ah was talkin' ta Wicked!"

"Pft, whiner!"

"Shaddup, ah'm rebootin' th' game!"

One of the Billys crossed their arms, scowling, disappointed that they'd have to kick ass all over again. Wicked just smiled, glad to be playing.

Roughly 3 hours later, they had gone through several games, and were just finishing up a match of Super Smash Bros. Melee, having switched over from Xbox to Gamecube about 40 minutes ago.

Kid Wicked, using Zelda, had won. Again.

"Damnit, damnit! She ain't that good a character, an' ya don't even play th' game that much!" Billy said, frustrated. Wicked just grinned again, satisfied with yet another victory.

Billy remerged the other two back into him and shut off the Gamecube. He scooched against the couch a little, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. Once he had, he smiled with his teeth bared.

"Thanks fer playin', Wicked. Ah thought everyone was jus' gonna be…y'know…an' it was makin' everythin' boring."

Wicked nodded, a little more serious. He wanted to still have fun, even if he wasn't as quick as Billy was to move past any problems they encountered. He didn't look it, but he liked excitement, he liked being silly. He especially liked building pillow forts with Billy. That aspect of Billy to talk too much, and be loud, and not care about sounding stupid drew Wicked in. Things didn't have to be gloom and doom and serious even when they should be - which pointed out Billy's inability to shut up, but since Wicked couldn't speak, having someone constantly talking was surprisingly enjoyable.

Wicked sat a little closer to Billy and tilted his head towards him, looking curious. He tried to express 'What should we do now?'

Billy shrugged. "Ah dunno. What do you wanna do?"

Wicked cast his eyes up, and began to think. What did he want to do? His pale lips moved side to side while he crunched and processed one thought after the other, looking for something they could do together.

His eyes lit up a bit, and he smiled towards Billy.

In a rather short amount of time, they were in a locked up Circuit City. They had already stolen plenty and were well stocked for the time being. Mostly, they were spending their time running around, crashing into walls, playing with anything they could get their hands on. They were being reckless, stupid, silly, and having a hell of a time being all those things.

After leaving a trail of destruction through the aisles, they sat down in front of the big screen TVs, resting up and regaining their breath. Billy pulled his mask up and his shades off, sweating from the heat build up of running around while wearing a skin tight outfit. He flattened out his short brown hair, blinked each of his hazel eyes once, and grinned at Wicked.

"That was fun, Wicked. Damn fun. We din't even steal anythin', an', an'….damn." He said, still breathing hard.

Wicked smiled back, seated next to Billy once more. His stomach expanded and contracted as well, but he didn't mind being too spent of energy. Wicked enjoyed running around like that just as much as Billy, if not more. Billy made it more exciting – how fun would it have been to do this on his own? A few, brief moments of adrenaline, but ultimately, boredom would come in that situation.

Wicked was perfectly natural with his excitement and joy, and didn't really often understand being nervous.

Billy, however, was being intimate with the feeling of nervousness, freezing up and his eyes going wide, once Wicked had done what he felt was only natural.

On Billy's cheek were Wicked's lips. And Billy had no clue on how he should react, aside from sheer panic.


	2. Awkwardness

It was a silent walk home from the Circuit City they busted into. For Kid Wicked, this was par for the course.

For Billy Numerous, this was a feat unheard of in his existence.

When they got back, Billy half-heartedly waved to the rest of the Hive Five. Gizmo was tweaking the microwave, for whatever reasons he had. Mammoth was constructing an elaborate submarine sandwich that could put caterers across America to shame. See-More waved back with just the same lack of enthusiasm Billy had. See-More distracted himself with video games – Tetris and its ilk for the most part, low intensity games.

Wicked followed Billy back to his room, with a look of curiosity on his face. Billy gently opened his door, plopped his butt onto the edge of his bed, and gestured for Wicked to come over with a few flicks of his wrist. He stepped over and sat next to Billy – once again, he sat too close for Billy's comfort, and promptly felt his stomach flip over itself again.

"So." Billy started his sentence, and didn't know how to continue it. He grinded his teeth together a little, thinking and pulling his mask back while he was at it. He blinked, readjusting to the room now that his shades weren't on.

Kid Wicked leaned over the bed, and looked at him with wide eyes, suggesting 'Yes?'

"Why, uhm…why did you do that?"

Wicked could see that it was about to get more and more difficult to express himself. He put up a finger telling Billy to wait, and teleported out of the room. He came back quickly, now holding a notepad and pen in his hands.

'Do what?' Wicked wrote out. 'Break into the Circuit City with you?'

"No, Wicked, th'…th' other thing." Billy mumbled out, weakly.

'Kissing your cheek?' Wicked asked in print.

"Yeah. That. Were ya just bein', y'know, really friendly?" Billy asked, hopeful.

'I think it was friendly.' Wicked started. Then he put a space in, and started the next sentence. 'But I also like you.' He added, with no hesitation, oblivious to how that if he was any more blunt, he could wield his words like a club and kill a man with them. His relaxed body posture did nothing to reassure Billy.

Billy clutched at semantics at this point - anything to give him an inkling of a thought that Wicked wasn't attracted to him. "But, do ya, y'know, uhm, like like me?" Billy said, glad no one else could hear him talking like a 14 year old Texan girl.

Wicked let a smile beam across his face. 'I really do like you. You're fun. You're funny to watch and listen to. You're not serious all the time.' Wicked responded, letting absolutely no complications enter his reasons for liking Billy, or in the way he expressed and explained those reasons.

Billy sighed again. There was no getting out of it. Wicked really did like him. And Billy did like Wicked as a very close friend. In the academy, Billy was grateful to have someone who would listen to every word he said, not once telling him to shut up. Wicked laughed at his jokes, and was just there all the time. Having Kid Wicked around helped Billy to not be so reliant on himself as a best friend, which any man could stand for only so long.

Billy liked Wicked, appreciated him.

But the question he was asking himself is did he like Wicked as much as Wicked liked him.

He then immediately asked himself why he was even thinking about such a thing. 'Ah shouldn't be thinking about this!' he silently told himself 'It shouldn't even be a question!'

Much as he tried to just clear the thoughts from his mind, the question remained. Then Kid Wicked, catching onto Billy's facial expressions, reinforced it by writing 'Do you like me, Billy?'

Billy paused, being hesitant to go with his gut instinct of 'no, don't wanna think about this, let's just forget this ever happened.' A second feeling had emerged, and it refused to go away.

Billy chose the path in the middle.

"Ah…ah dunno. Ah might. Ah might not. Ah have to think about it, Wicked."

Wicked just nodded.

"Ya don't mind me thinkin' 'bout it first, Wicked?"

Wicked smiled again as he scratched words into the notepad. 'You're my friend, of course I don't mind.'

Billy let a very tiny smile shoot back in return, grateful for having a guilt-free chance to work out his own feelings.

A pause stepped into the room, making the atmosphere thick with awkwardness for 30 seconds.

'Can we watch a movie tonight? Together? And build a pillow fort?' Wicked wrote, hopeful.

Billy looked dumbfounded. Then, he felt the nervousness drop from his body like a brick. He grinned and laughed. This is where he felt comfortable. Movies, pillow forts, and the like.

"Ah don't see why not."

Wicked put the notebook away, and tugged at Billy's arm eagerly. 'Let's go pick which movies!'

Billy laughed.


	3. Resolution

Things had been awkward for the past week, to say the least.

Wicked and Billy did get by, still having fun, still watching movies, playing video games, eating pizza, stealing – the old routines. Billy smiled the whole time, but he still had the tension holding him back from getting the full enjoyment out of the time he spent with the pale boy. He said he had to think about his feelings for Wicked. And he did. Constantly. It seemed to consume his mind, much as he wanted to just occasionally occupy himself with thoughts of BBQ, monster trucks, and why duckbilled platypuses were so funny looking. Even when he did managed to step away from the subject of 'Wicked likes me', it stayed around, somewhere in the back of his head, turning and grinding, just waiting to get back into the center stage.

Wicked, on the other hand, was free from burning thoughts, genuinely enjoying and focusing on the dumb, fun things he and Billy did together. Sometimes Mammoth would join in, often wrecking the area – but it was okay, so long as they were wrecking someone else's building. But for the most part, it was just Billy and Wicked.

This time, they had broken into the local mall, closed after hours, moving inside of the arcade. Kid Wicked flipped everything on with a childish grin, delighting in seeing all the lights and sound of the arcade come to life. The two of them disabled the security system before they went in, allowing them to enjoy it in peace. For hours, they shot zombies in house of the dead, watch Billy flail and fall over in Dance Dance Revolution, stole quarters from the counter, and just waste time in digital escapes.

When they had run out of energy, they lay down in the LAN area, surrounded by computers and black rolling chairs. Billy panted, sweating, having once again failed to clear a single song on DDR. Wicked grinned at him, his face laughing, but with no noise coming out. Billy pulled back on his mask to reduce the heat, showing his sweat stained, messy, short brown hair. He blinked a few times, readjusting the world and getting his bearings.

He attempted to speak in his thick southern accent. Billy found that he still needed a lot more air before he could form words. So, he breathed in the thick air what felt like a few hundred more times, and tried to speak.

"Mmf." He managed to spit out, then taking two more breaths to recover from the energy expense it took to open his mouth and twang his vocal cords to produce the sound.

Kid Wicked crawled forward, pulling his bat-like mask off to let his head cool down as well. Long black hair that couldn't seem to stay straight fell out, being brushed to the side so it didn't cover his eyes. He slowly grabbed a pen from one of the desks holding the computers up, slapping his hand around, searching for paper until finally grabbing hold of some sheets.

'That was fun!' Wicked etched in with black ink.

Billy simply nodded, starting to get his wind back.

'I'm glad you still like to do this stuff, Billy.'

Billy nodded again, smiling a bit.

A long pause entered, Billy and Wicked just lying flat. Wicked felt his skin tense up, hesitating to write down what he wanted to say. He knew Billy was having difficulty with just thinking about it.

Still, he forced himself to do it.

'Have you thought about it, Billy?'

Billy nodded again, slower this time, minus the smile.

'Do you have an answer?'

Billy shook his head side to side gently. He didn't.

Wicked swallowed a lump in his throat. He was more patient than Billy, but he didn't want to wait too long. Otherwise, Billy might never make up his mind, or just try to move on and act like nothing had happened – which is at least what Wicked feared.

"Uhm. Wicked."

Wicked perked up. Yes? He expressed with his face.

"Ah don't know cuz… cuz ah'm kinda nervous jus' thinkin' 'bout it. Ah'm a lil scared."

Wicked listened intently, moving a little closer to Billy.

"So…so ah know yer mah friend… but ah can't just, y'know, think past that. There's a, a… a block. An' ah need somethin' ta force me past it."

Wicked's eyes were curious and wide. Where was he going with this?

"So, uhm, ah jus' need ya ta kiss me again. An' even though ah'm kinda scared of it, ya need ta kiss me on th' lips. It'll make me figger things out way faster." Billy squirmed. A large part of him regretted that right after saying it. "Jus' lemme close mah eyes, an'…an' don't surprise me too much, okay?"

Wicked nodded. Billy bit his lips once, released, and then shut his eyes close. Wicked glided over to Billy, placing one hand on his chest, and his head inches above Billy's. He leaned gently down, silently eager, but wanted to make things easy on Billy.

Then there was the kiss.

Billy did not make the revelation of 'I like guys', or 'I like Wicked', or 'I like' anything. The first revelation that came to him was this.

'I don't mind this.'

Then, the natural conclusion 'I don't mind Wicked doing this.'

From there on came a series of 'I don't mind's, and it clicked for Billy. Wicked could be more than a friend to him. The block wasn't there anymore. There was opportunity.

And he would take it.

Billy kissed back quickly, softly, still a little nervous. Wicked smiled ear to ear, and hugged Billy close. He could like Billy and Billy could like him. He wouldn't have to feel guilty about liking him.

Billy then shattered the moment with "Yer face is really sweaty an' warm, Wicked."

Wicked considered this.

He then laughed silently, glad to have Billy.


End file.
